January 2009 , Page 9

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A Night to Remember (Inside NACDL)

Publisher’s Note: This month, when the nation will inaugurate the 44th president of the United States, I want to share an extraordinary experience, not of something that happened “Inside NACDL,” but of something magical and powerful that happened outside NACDL. It is a memory of an inexplicable and spontaneous force that blossomed in the streets of our nation’s capital on the night of November 4, 2008 — the night America fulfilled a promise of its birth.

As so many of every political viewpoint and ideology noted, irrespective of whether they support the policies of Barack Obama, the fact of his election is a watershed in American history. It proved yet again the capacity of the United States to stun the world with its embrace of freedom and equality.

I watched the election returns in my apartment a couple of blocks from NACDL’s headquarters in downtown Washington, D.C. — about three blocks from the White House. I was joined by my wife Linda A. Reimer, an education administrator, and a

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